On March 16, 2017, Carrie Benedict’s despair overwhelmed any traces of hope she had left. She desperately wanted to end her life.

She was deeply in debt. She believed she was a failure as a mother and a disappointment as a friend. Her car had just been repossessed. She sought daily solace in the bottom of Jack Daniels bottles, she recalled.

That night, she sat alone in the dark, listening to sad music and sobbing uncontrollably, she remembered.

Her demons taunted her, just as they had taunted her since childhood. A voice inside her whispered, “You are taking up space in everyone’s life. They don’t need you. It’s all apparent, you idiot,” Benedict recalled.

She tidied up her messy bedroom. She packed up important belongings to make it easier for police when they found her body and searched her home, she figured.

Benedict had it all thought out, even how and where to take her life.

“And end all this agony,” she told herself.

Benedict grabbed her smartphone and sent goodbye texts to her friends and sister.

“I told her to tell my kids I love them and I am sorry that I suck as a mother and at life,” she recalled.

Benedict never made it to the door.

She recalled this painful story to me after learning about the suicide deaths last week of celebrity chef and TV host Anthony Bourdain and celebrity designer Kate Spade.

"There was some dark genie inside me," Bourdain said a few years ago on his popular TV show, possibly offering a hint at his decision.

The deaths of the two celebrities thrust the sensitive subject of suicide back into the public spotlight. And with it, the mentioning of terms we would rather not think about, especially for parents of troubled teenagers – copycat suicides, suicide contagion and suicide clusters.

“Have a conversation with your child about suicide,” states one suggestion for parents from the Suicide Prevention Lifeline.

I don’t know many parents who are brave enough to initiate such a conversation.

I’ve written more than three dozen columns through the years on the topic of suicide. I’ve listened to grieving parents and stunned survivors. I’ve attended too many funerals for people I’ve never met.

My early columns were met with fear or anger by some readers. They were afraid it would prompt more suicide attempts. I always disagreed.

“We need public dialogue, not public denial,” I wrote back in 2007. “We need more talk of suicide prevention and less talk of suicide notes. We need to shine a light into one of the darkest corners of the human condition.”

I’m writing about it again. And I’ll keep writing about this topic if it helps to prompt or continue a needed conversation, taking it from the shadows of shame and stigma into the light of better understanding.

While writing this column Tuesday, I noticed a Facebook notification from Carly Petersen, whose 15-year-old daughter, Kelsey, shot and killed herself in the family’s Porter County home June 12, 2008.

“Wow, 10 years.... a decade,” she wrote. “Some days still unbelievable, it has all been accepted but there are still those moments I can't even believe you were mine… I sure do miss you and will always love you.”

Petersen has been an outspoken activist for suicide prevention since her daughter’s death. Her advocacy is needed more than ever.

Despite the understandable fears about teenage suicide, adults ages 45 to 64 had the largest rate increase from 1999 to 2016, according to government figures. Celebrity deaths by suicide may get our attention but it’s happening regularly, including in Northwest Indiana.

Just because we may not read about it in local news (media typically reports suicide deaths only if it’s done in a public place) suicide takes place on a consistent basis here, too.

Most recently, a 24-year-old man was found dead from a self-inflicted gunshot wound on a lifeguard stand in Michigan City. And a 61-year-old LaPorte woman killed herself outside of a hotel, police said.

Again, these are public, not private, suicide incidents, and not a “celebrity suicide,” a term that is again trending these days on the internet.

Experts are again educating us about suicide prevention, reminding us that mental illness is a disease, not a demon. And that other factors play a role, from social interaction to personal alienation to lack of connections.

Too many people wrongly believe, “I am alone. I am a burden. I am not afraid to die.”

“Why do we only want to talk about mental health care when celebrities kill themselves?” asked Benedict, 40, of Valparaiso. “It should already be a top discussion.”

This is why she shared her story with me.

That night when she planned to end her life, something happened she didn’t expect.

“My phone blew up with calls,” she recalled. “It kept ringing and ringing.”

Her roommate and friends showed up before she could leave her home.

“My sister was on the phone and she would not leave me alone,” Benedict said. “I told her I was fine and everything will be fine. She yelled through the phone, ‘You are NOT FINE, Carrie!’”

Police were called. An ambulance arrived. Benedict spent a week in the behavioral unit of a Michigan City hospital.

“It took me two days not to lay in bed and just cry,” she said.

Her family and friends rallied around her. They bathed her in love and support.

For the first time in nearly 30 years, Benedict opened up to others about her depression and despair.

“My journey began to a reborn Carrie. It was my awakening,” Benedict said.

She is now an advocate for helping others.

“Be honest with everyone you interact with,” she suggested. “You too are not alone.”